Progress from the United States House Select Committee on the January 6th Attack is giving former conservative Republicans hope for the future of the party, while others are bracing for a repeat of the 2016 election in 2024.
Midterm election results and political party shifts were the main focus points during the 24th Annual Democracy Conference from the University of Virginia Center for Politics last week.
“Donald Trump may not have been on the [midterm] ballot, but Trumpism was,” said former Virginia representative and Center for Politics Scholar Barbara Comstock, who described herself as a former conservative Republican who “may or may not” return to the party. “Trumpism was the split decision that we got in 2020. Trump may have been defeated, but it was clear that Trumpism was alive and well and that malignancy of Trump has metastasized throughout our politics.”
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Political analysts are still identifying the political effects of Donald Trump’s presidency and the Jan. 6 attack on the future of American politics.
Trump still has the support of 78% of registered Republicans, according to an October 2021 poll from Quinnipiac University. Supporters include Sarah Palin, who lost the race for Alaska’s House seat, and Herschel Walker, a Trump-picked candidate to challenge the U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.). Palin and Trump have endorsed Trump’s false election fraud claims on Twitter and in public interviews.
On the other hand, former conservatives like Comstock believe that Trump’s time in office and alleged role in the Jan. 6 attacks have left a stain on the Republican party.
The midterm election results were just one indication that Republicans are still paying for Trump’s actions during his presidency, said Sabato’s Crystal Ball managing editor Kyle Kondik.
“I was all in until Donald Trump came on the scene,” said CNN political commentator and Center for Politics Scholar Tara Setmayer, who spent 27 years with the Republican party. “I figured there was no way Republicans were going to allow this. That was 2015 and 2016. I was wrong. After [the attacks] in Charlottesville, that was it. That was the first time Republicans had a chance to finally say [it] made a mistake. No—they doubled down.”
Although Republicans underperformed in the eyes of political analysts like Kondik, in the races for 35 Senate seats and all but one of the House seats, gaining control of the House by an eight-seat margin—that is true to the pattern of the party. The results were on-par with those from the 2014 and 2018 midterms with six split-ticket states, Kondik says.
This year, 23 congressional districts elected a different party to the House than the ones they voted for in the 2020 presidential election. Republicans claimed eight districts that President Biden carried in 2020. This is how the party won the majority vote, while Democrats claimed five districts that Trump won in the same year.
Such a slim midterm margin may overextend Republicans and give Democrats a chance at reclaiming the House in the 2024 presidential election but it is too early to tell, Kondik says.
“The midterm often serves to put a check on the White House as it did in this election,” Kondik said. “The House has changed hands a dozen times since 1900. This was the 12th time since 1900. Of those 12, 10 have come in the midterm year as opposed to the presidential year.”
Shortly after the midterm elections, Trump announced his bid for the Republican party presidential candidate for 2024. If elected, he would become the second president to serve two nonconsecutive terms. Grover Cleveland served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897.
“Republicans tend to be popular with their base when they’re in office, but if they try to come back, that complicates it,” said Sabato’s Crystal Ball associate editor J. Miles Coleman. “Ulysses Grant tried to run again in 1880, but he didn’t make it past the Republican convention.”
“One rough parallel to Trump, if he goes that route, is Teddy Roosevelt about 100 years ago, who was as popular as presidents get. He tried to come back and the Republican party said no.”
The two-hour evening was led by Center for Politics Scholars Jonathan Karl, ABC News chief correspondent and co-anchor of This Week with George Stephanopoulos, and Margaret Brennan, UVa alumna and moderator of Face the Nation on CBS News.
Center for Politics director and Emmy-award-winning political analyst Larry Sabato shared that the center recently received a multimillion-dollar donation that will fund two new professorships at the center. The donation from Center for Politics board member Drew McKnight and his wife, Amy, will make way for the tenured Bicentennial Professor of Politics and the John S. McCain Professor of Practice positions.
